Screen Refreshing/Labor

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March 16th, 2018 to April 15th, 2018

Curated by Zheng Wen, Hai Jie and Chen Zheng

Photographing as a verb seamlessly connects the daily life and artistic creation of modern people. Photography in the new millennium is no longer just the “classic moment” imagery narrative of Bresson, nor is it just “gazing objectively” at the social landscapes. Photography exists in the reality of information and internet as a new prosthetic limb-like conditional reflex. It is also a new alienating behaviour of contemporary human beings. If the “spiritual light” Benjamin was calling for had been precarious in the paper media era, then is being further dispersed step by step as the pixels continue to improve in the era of screens.

The exhibition at the Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Art (AMNUA) as one of China’s most important college museums will address the state of photographic and imagery production in the current context of global social life. The event is designed to present works of photography marked with strongest characteristics of the era of new media. It will showcase the most vivid and overwhelming pictures of life and video experience of our times in several thematic sessions.

And photography, or image in a larger sense, has a special significance at such moments. It is not only the object of our consumption, the channel of our consumption, but also the effective tool for self-reflection and media criticism. In other words, it works as a double agent. Today, the identity and fate of images are the portrayal of our own destiny.